Peddling Pornography

June 26, 2004by atanu

Caught a glimpse of the front page of The Times of India while commuting to work this morning. I noticed that they are now peddling pornography to increase their circulation. No wonder they are referred to by some as The Slimes of India. The top left hand corner of the front page declares in bold print:

Internet Hawker Puts Brittney Sex Video Up For Sale

A few weeks ago it was confirmed that the newspaper has paid editorial-page content that masquerades as honest reporting. I wonder how much they get paid for peddling pornography on the front page.

Couldn’t agree more. Not only that they reek of pro west bias in their reporting, making me think that they are extension of jew media mafia. What a day we live in! apparently it has highest circulation in key metros.

http://mblog.com/forsv/ SV

Very true. Even their political ideology is based on who gives more moeny. Unfortunately they have the highest subscrition. The day the readers decide enough is enough and demand quality journalism or they boycott, I don’t see a change happening.

Arun

Cheap sells, literally and figuratively.

Arun

Arun

Cheap sells, literally and figuratively.

Arun

http://sanspeak.blogspot.com Santoshkumar

For TOI the top bar of the front page has become a daily boob gallery. Now they have additional supplements so that they can carry more ads e.g. Bombay Times, Education Times & Times Wellness. I frankly subscribe to TOI because, I don’t have time to tell my paperwala to discontiue, bugger just drops the paper at door and goes away.

Anyway who needs a newspaper these days. I have become so vorocious these days that even news.google.com doesn’t satisfy me.

And moreover blogger like you give more satisfying content and news about real “India”.

Through TOI I assume that more than half of India needs “Weight Loss Programme” and through you I know that “Indian Are Dying of Hunger”. The news which is lost in insignificant corners of these newspapers.

http://www.timeisfleeting.com Sujoy Mukherjee

It’s time to take media power out of the hands of people like the Times of India. Although I don’t think that the blogs will become the central source of information in India in a long while, it’s time we, as a community begtan to support intelligent newspapers like the Hindustan Times and the Asian Age which are trying to make inroads into Bombay.

Anonymous African Coward

I didn’t see that headline of course, but in any case it is wrong, since to the best of my limited knowledge Britney Spears has never engaged in any sexual hijinks on video. Not that I would care if she did, since obviously her musical talents are limited at best, and I don’t think that she has that much skin left to show that she hasn’t already shown us over the years.

ashok

Sure, agree to what has been written about The Times of India. In an effort to get a bigger circulation than The Hindustan Times, they have resorted to printing sleaze.

Well, sex sells easily….and that is what TOI is resorting to. Seems to me, till date most newspapers had missed out the illiterates of society…thats a big market in any city in India, so me thinks TOI is trying to sell printed paper to that sector, where the text print is never observed, and only the ‘exposed’ graphics are of cheap interest.

Suggest HT to take note of this and not follow suit. TOI has been banned at my place and I sure hope most of the educated class would do the same.

Todays edition (9/7/2004) of TOI carries full graphics on understanding ones tax burdens…..something unbelievable…TOI has not even left such topics clean of such smut.

It is a shame such publications are allowed to function normally … the TOI directors need to be jailed.

Kapil

Ok folks,
I get what you all say but why don’t you think about us teenager who are living in a social family and where pornography of any sort is completley banned . At this time it’s only TOI that comes to much of our rescue .

I give to thumb up to TOI people for living upto our expectations,thank you TOI.

http://driveindia.blogspot.com Pranay Da Spyder

Kapil echoes a viewpoint thats not unexpected really. Thanks to the remarkable scarcity of pornographic media in India, broadsheet newspapers have to now expand their coverage to satiate the needs of the common consumer. The Times of India is merely serving a market. This is of course to the chagrin of serious readers like Atanu and myself, however this is the disappointment most of us would face because of the glut of pornography in mainstream media or the lack of niche pornographic (or other entertainment) segments.

Broadly, I think this extends to most market segments in India as niche markets are not adequately explored or catered to. This obviously presents huge untapped sub-segments (like the wine market for example) that few entrepreneurs can identify and build solutions for.

I agree with you.I used to buy only Sunday edition of TOI due to Jug Suraya’s column,but has even stopped that and it is a great relief.I buy Hindu and Indian express only and for the sake of good jouranlism please abandon TOI

sam

the mainstream television media is the worst culprit. they are allowing underwear advertisements with vulgar connotations during peak hours. there is no sting in the advertising council of india. i wonder if they exist. when you can feel the erect penis of a poor man’s underwear on the large tv screen before 8 pm news sitting with your ever inquisitive children you understand who are shortselling us. television channels are vying with one another with trivial news of new delhi and mumbai where whole india has no existance. no news channel besides may be ndtv has gone beyond the metros for ages. as if metros constitute a country within this country. hope there should be some kind of regulation to check these abberations.

Siddhartha Sinha

Times of India has now taken it up as a zeal to introduce pornography to kids. They have segmented the market into 8-12 and 12-15 years old. Look at the Sunday Supplement of 18th Feb 2007 and they have a large photo of two 8-10 year old kids peering into a porn mag and the accompanying article distorts an ostensible research conducted in US. It is the height of yellow journalism. Peddling pornography is one thing which they have almost made passe now. But thrusting it onto the hands of kids and tom-tomming it as the done thing using distorted interpretation of research results placed out of context, is an insidious inroad into our traditional psyche and a pernicious attempt to sear the moral fabric of our country.